


Where is Your Boy?

by allylikethecat



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Kleptomania, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 05:15:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7421398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allylikethecat/pseuds/allylikethecat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tyler has always had sticky fingers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where is Your Boy?

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to talkingraccoon who convinced me to post this. It wouldn't really exist without her wonderful cheerleading. It's also only been half beta read so any glaring mistakes are 100% my own. 
> 
> I did my best with the research going into this fic, and mean no disrespect for the way this fictional version of Tyler's mental illness is depicted. If it has come across as offensive or I have made a horrible mistakes in it's depiction please let me know! All my research came from google and my friend who is a psychology major, all of which are sources that are not perfect! 
> 
> Title is taken from Grand Theft Autumn by Fall Out Boy. 
> 
> I don't own any of this characters depicted, and this is a work of fiction. 
> 
> WARNING: Patrick Kane is mentioned in passing in one line in this text .
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Hope you're having a great day!

Tyler has always had sticky fingers. 

He'd snag a candy bar at the grocery store check out when he was a toddler. Hiding the foil-wrapped treats in pudgy palms until he was alone. The few times he got caught his mother had laughed and paid for the treat. Tyler had cried and refused to eat it. She had taken away the meaning 

He took hockey pucks and lacrosse balls as he grew older, dumping them into gear bags and backpacks, no one any wiser. CDs and naughty magazines found their way under his bed. He took things he didn't need, stuff that he didn't even want. 

But it was always right there. A snapback on a rack by the door, sunglasses too expensive for his mom to ever even consider buying a fifteen year old. 

When he started getting serious about hockey, right after getting serious about quitting lacrosse, he found himself with a collection of hotel room keys and stick tape at the bottom of his bag after every roadie.

He had trinkets from all of the people he met, all the guys he played with. A knit toque, a key chain, rubber bracelets with social justice sayings. Things people would miss enough to notice it was gone, but nothing they would actual mourn the loss of. 

He didn't mean to take these things; he didn't want to take these things. It was just so easy, and it felt so good. 

As he got older the things he took held more value. A designer watch, a puck signed by Gordie Howe. Things people noticed when they went missing. But Tyler just kept taking. Graduating from the paintbrushes of hardware stores that marked his youth to the delicate gold chains of adolescence. 

He took cameras and clothes, designer handbags and wallets straight from the shelves. One time he even took a cellphone, its screen cracked, sitting unprotected on the counter of the diner they were eating at. He had panicked after, and dumped it down a storm drain in the street. He hated himself a little, his prizes kept in the lock trunk at the base of his bed at his billet house. He didn't hate himself enough to stop. He wasn't sure if he even wanted to. He just kept taking, nothing ever being enough. 

He got drafted second overall to Boston. By the end of the first week he had keys and a fob for every area of the Garden. He had train passes he would never use, he had car keys and boat keys and house keys. Keys were always his favorite. It was something that was missed, but in an abstract sort of way. Keys meant endless possibly. 

There was always a new pack of cigarettes sitting in the cup holder of his car. The car one of the first things he had bought in he doesn't know how many years. Lighters floated around the backseat and glove box, mixing with stray pieces of gear and articles of clothing. Tyler didn't smoke. But it was something to take from the counters of convenient stores. Sometimes they were even a challenge. 

He outfitted his apartment with flatware and dishware taken from restaurants across the city. He drank coffee and tea from heavy mugs that once belonged to hipster cafes and hotel lobbies. Anything else sipped from heavy pub glasses, their logos etched brightly into the glass. 

By the end of the season he had Marchy's Stanley Cup ring in a zip lock bag hidden inside a pair of old running shoes he would probably never wear again. Insurance had replaced the missing ring, but Tyler still felt dirty, knowing he had it, knowing he took it. 

It was just so easy. It was almost just like a game, and Tyler always played to win. But he didn’t know what the prize was or how to get to the end. Taking wasn’t like hockey. There were no three periods and a possible overtime. There was just the present and the future. He would see something with a vague interest, and the next thing he knew he was halfway up the street, with whatever it had been. He could afford to pay for the watches and sunglasses, the clothes and jewelry, but there was just something so much more satisfying about taking it. 

Marshall had a dog collar from a fancy pet boutique in the Back Bay. Marchy had even been with him when he took it, no one noticed. He kept the throw pillow from Chara’s living room in the back of his closet. Sometimes he slept in Bergy’s tee shirt. The equipment manager was still looking for Tuukka’s mask. 

He was twenty-one years old and shaking where he sat in the GM's office. They were disappointed in him, couldn't believe he had gotten away with it for so long. But they weren't going to call the police. They offered to get Tyler help. The GM had an expensive gold plated pen on his desk. Tyler took it on his way out. 

He got a call on the Fourth of July, drunk on the liquor he had taken from various teammates houses across the season. Taking the pen had set him over the edge. He was being traded to Dallas. The simple platinum pendant he had taken from Patrick Kane in Switzerland hung heavy like a noose around his neck. He might have a problem.

Tyler has always had sticky fingers. When he got to Dallas, he told himself he needed to stop. A pack of gum found its way into his palm, and then his pocket at the airport.

Jamie Benn met Tyler at baggage claim, holding a printer paper sign reading "Segs." He was wearing an unsure smile. Tyler stole a Bic pen from the floor of his truck. It was missing the cap.

By the end of the week Tyler had the keys to the apartment Jamie shared with his brother Jordie. He has a well-worn Harry Potter book with "Property of Jameson Benn" written in crooked crayon across the inside cover. 

There was a cat figurine he had taken from an antique shop down town sitting on his kitchen counter. The price tag still stuck to the bottom telling him it was worth over a hundred dollars. Tyler didn't even like cats, he was allergic.

Anxiety bubbled inside of Tyler’s chest, and he found himself with tee shirts, with hats, with socks. With gloves and bracelets. The harder he tried to control his impulses the harder it was to stop. He never thought about it before. In Boston there was no premeditated plan. He saw something and he took it. In Dallas he thought too much. He had Lindy’s iPad in his gear bag underneath a layer of dirty work out clothes. 

He had more pens that he knew what to do with. More mugs, and dinner plates, and wine glasses than any one person needed. He had watches and stuffed animals and countless pairs of sunglasses, all snagged from store displays, and from the people around him. 

Tyler sat with his feet up on the ottoman in Jamie’s apartment, watching as he fluttered around, trying to find his grandmother’s engagement ring. He had worn it on a chain around his neck for as long has he could remember. He had hardly ever taken it off. It was sitting in the shoe with Marchy’s cup ring in Tyler’s apartment. The light glittering off the modest diamond from where it sat on the kitchen counter too much for Tyler to resist. 

Tyler bid Jamie good night, a stack of heavy stainless steal coasters in his hoodie pocket. 

He was at the pet store buying dog food for Marshall. He left with a fish in his water bottle. Tyler didn’t want a fish. He didn’t know what to do with a fish. He named him Bobby. The next day Tyler took a fish bowl and food for him from the Super Target up the street from the rink. 

Jamie laughed the next time he was over, and saw Bobby swimming happily in the living room. “Marshall wasn’t enough?” he teased. 

Tyler wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to cry. 

It was getting worse. He was taking jerseys, taking skates, anything he could get his hands on. He stole the nameplate out of Daddy’s stall. People were starting to notice. Everywhere Tyler went something went missing even if they hadn’t yet realized he was the link. 

He had candles, and reading glasses, books, magazines, and pointless decorations like paperweights, and bookends, plastic succulents, and real succulents. If it wasn’t bolted down Tyler at least considered taking it. The impulse impossible to ignore as he shoved a pack of playing cards from the CVS across from their hotel into the pocket of his sweatshirt, waiting for Jamie to hurry up and by the chips he just had to have. 

There was a display with light up rubber bouncy balls sitting by the registers. Tyler took one of those too. He fiddled with in his pocket as he walked back across the street with Jamie. Digging his fingernails into the malleable rubber while Jamie crunched far to loudly on the bag of Doritos.

He was scared. He wanted to be normal. He wanted to stop. 

Every time Tyler left a store he expected someone to yell at him, to accuse him of the theft he was committing. He kept waiting to be called into the GM’s office, two police officer’s waiting on either side of the door, telling him to come with them. Tyler wanted to stop, but it was an itch he needed to scratch. He couldn’t live without the rush. 

He took a lamp from Spezza’s reading room one night after a party. Everyone’s minds softened with alcohol. He was sharp and alert. Nursing a single beer the entire night, trying to quell his impulses. 

He wanted to start over. He wanted a do over. He wanted to leave the gold plated pen on the desk in Boston. He wanted to take the help they had offered but it was too late. Tyler lived every day looking over his shoulder, waiting for the red and blue lights to follow him home. 

Jamie kissed Tyler heavily on the mouth. He tasted like wine and summer and home. Tyler kissed him back before pushing him off, tears stinging in his eyes as he blinked them away. 

Jamie started apologizing, and Tyler shook his head. “I have a problem,” he said, his voice low and scratchy. The first time he had ever admitted it out loud. He thought of the engagement ring on a chain, in a shoe, in his closet with Marchy’s cup ring. Tyler went home. 

He walked into the GM’s office with shaking hands. A pen he had taken from the receptionist’s desk clutched heavily in his palm. “I have a problem,” he said, more confidence in his voice than he felt. “And I think I need help.” 

Tyler has always had sticky fingers. But for the first time he could remember, he was finally starting to feel clean.


End file.
